Google Maps 7 Pack Being Scaled Down?

A WebmasterWorld thread reports that Google may be scaling down the use of the local 7 pack of Google Maps results for some very local specific queries.

One full member at WebmasterWorld said:

Up until a day or two ago, many queries we track that would normally spawn the Google Places 7-pack, have changed. Logged in or logged out of Google services, the local Google Places 7-pack is harder to make come up.